… or she’s meowing like she’s confused and frightened. This is a pretty likely bet in this situation, though I understand you’re angry and frightened on her behalf.
All your posts say “maintenance guy,” including the post where you said “Oh, and he said that if I get someone else to start tearing up the wall or if I do it myself that I’d be responsible for the damage and would have to pay for it.”
Now, assuming I’m reading this correctly and that you’re not leaving anything out in haste or upset feelings, the maintenance guy has NO authority to issue commands about who pays for what. That is up to the landlord - or the maintenance company (not “guy”) who represents the landlord for tenants. Have you actually been in contact with the landlord or the maintenance co. directly? Cuz this is on their heads ultimately, not the maintenance guy.
Also … and I know this will suck royally to read and even more for you to have to say out loud so I apologize in advance … it might help to really emphasize the potential stench aspect of a dead animal trapped in the walls.
I’ll try to make a little contribution. It seems most cats get quiet when they start to get their wits about them, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed as I’m sure you are, that that is the situation and not injury. Even so, it always seems to take a while for a discombobulated cat to move, even if they can hear you calling. And it complicates it that she’s new (just getting to know you?)
I would try keeping the light shining, smelly food out, and get a “feather on a stick” toy that you can stick through the hole and make that “bird flopping around” noise. Most cats can’t resist those and if she’s ok she might come after it. It’s worked for me, but you must be persistent.
Sometimes cats aren’t meowing because their hurt. Sometimes they make that urgent meow because they can’t see you or because they want to tell you something. One of my boys screams at the top of his lungs in the bathroom until you come in there so he can see you are in the house and all is well. Why he won’t walk into the other room to check for you I have no idea. The other one urgently meows at you if he feels you’ve slept too long until you move around and show him you didn’t die in the night. Cats is weird. I hope your little one comes out of the hole without a problem soon!
I say maintenance man to mean the only maintenance man this apartment complex has had as long as I’ve lived here. Every time something breaks, the maintenance man (Roy) is the person out here. As far as I know, he lives here too, somewhere, because he’s also the one that comes out when there’s emergency maintenance needed in the middle of the night.
But anyway, I did speak with the actual landlord who said they’d “try to think of something”, but I don’t hold my hopes up because I’ve put work orders in for many things needing to be fixed in my apartment over the 8 years I’ve been here and they rarely come out to fix things…not unless you keep calling and pestering them 6-7 times.
I have put some cat food and tuna near the opening and shine a light down there periodically (like, every fifteen minutes) calling to him. Roy has said that the two shafts down there run, horizontally, for about 20 feet and don’t have any branches or anything that the cat could get out of another way nor does it lead to the underside of any other places in the building…so the cat must be somewhere in the 15-20 feet space. He also claimed that there shouldn’t be anything down there that would “trap” the cat–that it’s all open space–but I can’t help but have the niggling feeling he’s wrong somehow. Like I said, the first hour the cat was very vocal, and the mewing SOUNDED like he was hurt or weak or in distress,…so the sudden silence for the last three hours is unnerving.
Thank you all, though, for the advice and support.
How far down is he? If it’s too far for him to jump, or if the hole is too small for him to feel confident about jumping up and through it, you really should try the anchored towel or sheet.
In the meantime, please know that he may well be fine down there. As mentioned previously, he may have been meowing so much at first because he was distressed or confused, but you’d be surprised how happy and comfy cats can make themselves in a dark quiet space. Once he’s out, be sure to get it blocked off immediately, or he may decide it’s his new favorite napping spot.
Could you use a flashlight and mirror combo to see him? If the shafts run horizontally without obstruction, you can maybe stick the flashlight into the hole to illuminate them, and hold the mirror just inside the hole (at an angle).
Like others, hoping your kitty makes it out safely!
According to Roy, it doesn’t go down far at all…and from what I can see, he’s right. The two compartments I can see, the ground level is right there beneath the sink, so it just makes two little crawlspaces that extend to the end of the apartment, although, again, I’m not sure I want to take his only word on it. I certainly hope there’s no unknown holes somewhere along the way that drop down further, but who knows?
One other thing that causes me to worry, this cat is very vocal. Since I’ve had him (which has only been about a week), he has hardly gone a waking second without meowing. So he’s not the sort to just shut up unless he’s sleeping.
She might very well be sleeping, she is a cat. Earlier you mentioned that you thought she was hurt because she was meowing. In my experience cats that are hurt are pretty stoic about it. Sure you’ll get a yelp the moment something happens but beyond that a hurt cat generally keeps quiet lest she attract the attention of a predator. She was probably just a bit scared.
Fingers crossed for you and Mu, I hope she either comes out soon or somebody helps you get her.
edit: One more thing, the waiting 3-4 days idea is kind of risky. A day or two is ok but cats livers can start to have serious problems after a few days without eating. If your kitty isn’t out by tomorrow I’d start looking for other options if you can.
Once we discovered a young raccoon who’d trapped himself in a dumpster. We stuck a tree branch down into the dumpster, with the top sticking out high enough that he could crawl out. Sure enough, within a few minutes of us hiding behind our car, he crawled out.
If you don’t have any branches handy, if kitty is not declawed, a strip of carpet cut to size and stuck down the hole might work.
I’m having trouble picturing the layout of where the cat is, is there any way you can get a camera with a flash into the hole to take a picture of where the cat went?
Tell the landlord that he/she is responsible for code violations and if your cat dies because there is a whole big enough for rats to crawl through then he/she can explain it to the local TV station while defending the decision not to act.
This isn’t rocket science. The cabinets went in and they can come back out. Unless the landlord has established that the animal is not stuck and can extricate itself it’s Tim-the-Tool-Man time.
It would be nothing to take a vibrating saw and cut the bottom of the sink cabinet out along the edges without hurting the cat and reinstall it with firring strips.
Tell the landlord if maintenance doesn’t begin to work on this NOW your next phone call is to the local TV channel.
Again,thank you for all the replies, I’m going to try out a few more of these suggestions. I’ve been up since three am, through, so I’m going to try to get some sleep. When I wake up the office will be closed, no doubt, but I’ll be on them again, bright and early, at the 27 hour mark (27 hours since the cat’s been down there, if it reaches that. The cat disappeared into the hole around 6am, the office will open around 9am tomorrow. But here’s hoping the cat will be out by then. I’ll leave the sink doors open).
I don’t have a camera so I can’t take any photos of the hole under the sink but when I wake up I’ll try to draw a picture as best as I can of what one sees when they look under the sink.
Also, when he comes out, you should consider renaming him Jessica. Yeah, I know he’s a boy. He’s a cat, he won’t care, and he doesn’t answer to anything anyway.
